When Staff Augmentation Is The Right Fit For Your Project Compared to Other Outsourcing Models

There are a lot of factors that make software development outsourcing growth-driving strategies for both newly created startups and mature enterprises. Flexible engagement models and multiple opportunities to choose from are one of them. Augmenting your team with remote talent is one of the options you can consider to leverage top tech expertise and run the development process seamlessly. 

In this article, we will compare this tactic to other software development models to help you make the right choice. 

Why Is Staff Augmentation So Popular Software Development Model

In our recent articles, we have already dwelled on the IT staff augmentation definition and the main benefits to choose this tactic. In a nutshell, staff augmentation means extending your in-house team with remote talent, and below are the main reasons why this software development tactic is popular among both first-time startup initiators and large enterprises. 

• It bridges the talent gap. Extending your in-house team with remote developers is one of the easiest ways to access the necessary tech expertise, bridging the talent gap. This reason is especially relevant for the projects in need of specific knowledge and competencies that may not be available locally or the cost to hire them is too high. 
• It is cost-effective in the short run. IT staff augmentation promises an opportunity to cut operational costs since you don’t need to rent additional office space. This is also a way to reduce recruitment costs, especially if you partner with a trusted talent sourcing vendor.  
• Your extended team is easily scalable. An augmented team sourced by the development vendor is a flexible unit that can be easily adjusted according to your project needs. Team extension, as well as other software development models, means hiring for a service instead of hiring people, so you can easily scale or shorten the team, avoiding the red tape with traditional labor contracts. 
• Staff augmentation is a good choice to keep your project running. For the projects in urgent need of additional hands and minds, augmenting a tech team is an opportunity to proceed with software development without waiting for the HR department to fill the necessary positions. An extended team sourced by a vendor gets started with the development process immediately after onboarding.
• It requires little hiring expertise. Augmenting your development team with remote specialists sourced by the tech vendor is a good choice for the companies with no HR department under the roof, little hiring expertise or no additional costs to run the hiring process on their own.

Staff Augmentation vs Other Outsourcing Tactics - Making the Right Choice

Despite all the benefits, staff augmentation isn’t the only tactic to hire remote tech talent. Let’s take a look at the available opportunities and compare them with staff augmentation. 

Hiring additional team members in-house

This is the most intuitive tactic to follow when it comes to the need to extend the development team. However, this is also the most costly and less flexible one. Hiring additional team members in-house means investing in renting space, and equipment, dealing with payrolls, taxes, and other organizational issues on your own. 

However, it can be a good choice for the projects that need a larger development team for the long run, have hiring expertise and the necessary resources, or run several projects at the same time so as to re-assign the development tasks and quickly adjust to changes. 

Team augmentation, in turn, is a good short-term tactic for the projects that need to hire quickly and keep the development process running. 

Hiring a freelance team

Hiring a freelance team is another tactic to hire remote talent. Hiring freelance developers can actually be a good option to quickly extend your in-house team at a reasonable cost. There is a great freelance talent pool to choose from, plus hiring freelancers for the short-term is a well-established practice.

However, keep in mind that gathering a freelance development team to extend your in-house one requires great recruitment expertise since getting lost in the pool of candidates is pretty easy. Augmenting your team with the help of a development vendor, in contrast, is an option to use the hiring expertise of the company, save time and quickly access the necessary tech talent. 

Using sourcing as a service

Sourcing as a service is the next opportunity you can consider for augmenting your team. The essence of such a tactic is that the hiring company provides you with a list of potentially suitable candidates chosen according to your job requisitions, and that’s all.

Interviewing, making the final choice, onboarding, and managing your extended team are the tasks you should cope with on your own. So, sourcing as a service can be a good match for the companies that need to save time on the first stage of a recruitment process. 

But when a tech vendor sources an augmented team, all the issues related to onboarding and management are the responsibility of the vendor. 

Hiring a dedicated development team

Should you choose staff augmentation or is it better to hire a dedicated development team? As always, your project specifics are decisive. Hiring a dedicated development team is a value-adding tactic for the companies that need to run a medium-to-large project with great scalability potential, while team augmentation is a choice for the short term when there is a peak workload. 

But keep in mind that software development outsourcing comes with several engagement models you can combine in the most efficient way for your business. For example, you can get started with a team augmentation, and then, grow an augmented team into a dedicated one that will be engaged with separate project development. 

Setting up an offshore development center

As for the opportunity to set up an offshore development center, this is the strategy that large companies in need of ongoing IT support frequently choose. In our recent articles, we have compared setting up an ODC with hiring a dedicated development team, and as usual, the current business needs, available resources, and growth strategies are the core factors to analyze before making the final decision.

So, setting up an offshore development center means creating a separate business unit aboard with the goal of hiring a more affordable labor force, accessing the necessary tech talent, and expanding business presence. This is the choice for large enterprises while team augmentation can be winning for companies of all sizes.

What’s more, you can successfully use the best from both worlds, setting up an ODC and then, extending your ODC-based team with an augmented one.

How to Make Sure Staff Augmentation Is a Good Strategy for Your Project Development

There are several ways to hire software developers remotely but each of them should be accurately tailored to your project specifics. Here is how to make sure augmenting your team makes a good match for your business. 

1. Estimate your resources and capabilities. Hiring a remote team requires strong recruitment expertise, plus it is almost impossible to find a good candidate for free. So, if your company has a successfully operating HR department and hiring budget, you can augment your team on your own by attracting either remote developers or hiring them in-house. And vice versa, augmenting a team with the help of a tech vendor makes sense for the companies in need to cut costs and avoid recruitment headaches. 
2. Take one more look at your project requirements. Augmenting a team with remote developers makes sense for the short term. From the long-term perspective, hiring in-house or choosing a dedicated development model is more reasonable. 
3. Decide on the roles. Next, decide on the positions you have to fill with the help of staff augmentation. Usually, the companies choosing this tactic either need a highly-specific talent or several additional team members to speed up the project development during the high workloads. 
4. Automate if possible. For example, running automated testing sometimes makes more sense than hiring several testers to do it manually. But this is not a one-fit-all suggestion - in some cases, manual testing is a must. So, get back to your project requirements, look for automation opportunities, and only then decide on the size of an augmented team you have to hire.

Staff Augmentation Outsourcing Tips and Best Practices

Augmenting an in-house team with remote developers is one of the easiest-to-implement approaches. However, there are still some tips and tricks you should follow to get the most out of this strategy.

Choose the destination wisely

Hiring remote developers promises the opportunity to take advantage of global hiring. However, you should be careful with choosing the destination to source the necessary talent from since each of the countries is specific. 

For example, hiring developers from India is a great choice for projects on a budget. Latin America, in turn, often becomes a choice for the US companies appreciating the same time zone, geographical proximity, and better control opportunities. There are also undiscovered, less popular but no less promising destinations to choose from for remote hiring, and Azerbaijan is one of them. 

This is a politically stable, economically growing, and investing-friendly country with a large tech talent pool. The developers from Azerbaijan are greatly skilled with up-to-date mobile and web development technologies. They can boast of high English proficiency and hands-on experience with foreign project development.

Partner with a reliable vendor only

The core goal of staff augmentation is to expand the team quickly and at a lower cost. However, partnering with a reliable talent sourcing vendor is a must to unlock these benefits for your project development. 

Discover our guide on how to choose a trusted tech partner, and follow the best practices to do it right - validate their experience, check their online reputation, be attentive when signing a contract, and decide on the collaboration approaches in advance. 

Interview your potential candidates on your own

Indeed, partnering with a reliable development vendor promises the highest chance that the selected candidates will perfectly meet your project requirements. However, intervising them on your own is an add-on practice to make sure of a great candidate-project match.

Consider running both technical and non-technical interviews to choose the best candidates from the pool suggested by the vendor. You can also hire a third-party hiring and tech consultant to support you during the interviews.

Conclusion

Augmenting your in-house team with a remote one is a winning tactic for the short run. It adds special value to the businesses in need to scale a team quickly, cut recruitment costs but still bridge the talent gap and avoid development downtime.